


Monsters Belong In The Bed With You

by theworthofhollin



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworthofhollin/pseuds/theworthofhollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Did you have a nightmare?" whispered Yancy. Raleigh's voice shook in the dark. "I--I think theres somethin' under my bed." </p><p>An analysis of the Becket brothers and their monsters, from the first to the last. (and how Yancy would never leave Raleigh to face them completely alone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters Belong In The Bed With You

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Sadly, none of these characters are mine. This is just my own personal catharsis. Major movie spoilers**
> 
> Mostly canon-complacent, but I took some liberties with the ages ( i think they're 5 years apart?) and the whole drift connection. I like to think that Drift Compatibility is a bit more complex than just plugging two brains into a machine. Sometimes people just connect with or without the help of a handshake to start it out.
> 
> "Sometimes monsters get too big to fit under the bed, so they climb under the covers to sleep."
> 
> ########EDITED AS OF 10-17-13 (added section)

“Monsters Belong In the Bed with You.”

 

     “Yance. Yancy.”

     The shaky whisper warms his ear, and he mumbles himself awake. In the faint light through the curtains, he can see his baby brother’s big blue eyes, wide and anxious, hovering next to him. The bed dips slightly and his voice wobbles. “Yancy. Wake up.”

     “Whassamatta?” the words drip out, his lips too exhausted to bother with articulation. The alarm clock blinks out numbers. 4:51. He huffs a breath as the warm body shuffles closer in the tangle of sheets. “Rals?”

     “I think-- Yance…I think there’s somethin’ under my bed.” Raleigh’s voice shakes a bit at the end, and he tries to hide it with a cough. Yancy slowly feels himself wake up, and looks over at the small form latched onto his side. He’s shivering.

     “You have a nightmare?” he keeps his voice low and soft and he curls around the huddled body. Raleigh’s dreams have been screwing with his sleep the last few months. Ever since Dad left. Yancy doesn’t blame him.

     “No” his soft voice is slightly indignant and Yancy smiles in the dark. “I dont think so…But I just…can you check for me?” Like he could say no to that. With a groan, Yancy kicks his long legs out from under the mess of blankets. Its not like he was sleeping peacefully anyway from the state of his sheets, still slightly damp with his sweat. He looks back at the silhouette of his brother scrambling off the bed and holds out a hand. The grip Raleigh takes is painfully tight. Yancy kneels down.

     “Hey. Hey, calm down, kiddo.” Raleigh’s eyes are so bright they seem to glow in the light from the hallway. They look suspiciously wet. Yancy reaches down and grips under his arms to lift him to his hip. At 9 years old, his brother is definitely too old for this, but if the familiar monkey grip he latches onto Yancy’s neck with is any sign, it seems to get the job done. His breathing evens out and Yancy can feel the soft huffs of air on his jaw. He rubs his palm up and down the smaller boys spine. “Deep breath, little man. I got this.”

     “Yance, it was dark though, and the bulb’s still not working” Raleigh’s breathing is shaky and uneven, “and-and I heard something and Dad’s not comin’ and-and, Yance—“ Yancy readjusts his grip on the frantic tangle of elbows and knees so he can look him in the eye. One of Raleigh’s knees is jammed into the soft muscle under his ribs, and he grunts but doesn’t look away.

     “Hey. Raleigh. Listen to me.” His gaze is unwavering. “I’m here. Don’t worry about Dad. We can take care of this. It’s just a big dumb monster, right? That’s what big brothers are here for, huh?  Right?” he gets a slight nod. “That’s what I’m here for, bro.” He taps his brother’s hand against his own chest. “You got me. I got you. That’s a good deal.”

      The palm pressed against his heart pushes gently, then a pause, followed by a nod and a soft reply spoken into the skin of his neck.

     “Okay. Yeah.”

      Yancy’s arms are already getting tired by the time he reaches the end of the dimly lit hallway. He crouches down and Rals clambers out of his arms, but won’t relinquish the whiteknuckled grip in his hand. His room is dark, the faint glow of the stars making the shadows look long and ominous and for a moment, Yancy can understand his fear. He squeezes their grip once, then whispers in the silence:

     “Brother, I can’t face this monster alone.”

     Raleigh squeezes back.

     “Okay. Yeah.”

 

 

     In that moment, leading his brother into the quiet darkness of the room, Yancy feels much older than 14.

* * *

 

 

 

      He folds the paper in half and sets it on the table. Raleigh comes homes from school early on Tuesdays, and he can hear his brother kicking off his boots in the other room and rambling excitedly. "Dude, you'll never guess what happened after class today..." Turning the corner into the kitchen, he trails off mid sentence as he catches sight of the newspaper spread open in front of his unusually stoic older brother.  The front page is stamped with a photo of Otachi’s corpse and the blurry face of a crying child in a blue coat being carried out of the wreckage. Her face is caught mid-sob.

       "It happened again." the low light in the kitchen reflects off his blonde hair as Yancy leans forward and clenches a fist. "Tokyo." The younger Becket sinks bonelessly into the chair, his bag dropping to the ground with a dull thud. Yancy places a solid hand on his brother’s collar as Raleigh releases a shaky breath, eyes glued to the grainy picture of the girl.

       “I feel so useless, “ the hushed words echo in the almost silent kitchen. His brother slowly pulls back and unfolds another sheet of paper from his pocket. He sets it in between them gently, as if it weighs so much more than it should. The PPDC eagle is bright and metallic under the header, and as Raleigh skims the text his eyes slowly widen.

       “Is this—“ he gapes and looks at Yancy, terrified, until he reads it again. “Both of us? Together? You’re sure?” He grips his older brothers coat with one hand, white knuckled. Yancy nods, and presses his mouth firmly against the dirty blonde head in front of him. His throat feels tight with terror, but his spine is straight with purpose.

       “Brother,” he whispers against Raleigh’s forehead. “I can’t face this monster alone.”

       The room is quiet until soft chuckle breaks the moment.

      “Okay, yeah.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

     He feels the crack of lightening all the way down to his bones. The monster’s roar that follows drowns out the thunder in the background. 

 

 

     His heart freezes in his chest, and he knows what’s going to happen before it does. Half a human blink later and then Raleigh’s heart freezes too. The dread doubles in their link and he feels it snap and tremble in panic. “ _RALEIGH—“_ He can see his brothers eyes through the clear faceguard in his helmet, wide and angry and scared and so so _blue_ and his mind is full (of a warm body latched onto him in the dark _—im here—you got me—yeahokay igotyouigotyouigotyou)_ but he can’t form the words stuck in his chest, glued to his ribcage somewhere with his lungs. He can’t breath and then the conn pod tears open and their unbreakable bond is reduced to black flashes of dark water and the roar of the storm and the choking loss of connection and the snap of the link like a broken tendon and the blue of his brother’s eyes and terror and cold and _NO_ and Raleigh and Raleigh and Raleigh and Raleigh-- _LISTEN TO ME—_

* * *

 

      Later, after the reports notify the world that, thankfully, one of the Becket brothers made it back completely whole, Tendo Choi will sip his coffee next to an empty shell of a man in a hospital bed and disagree. In a small town off the coast of Anchorage, the wind still whispers the mantra of a dead boy’s name.

 

     And hundreds of miles away, a man will wake his teenage daughter from a nightmare. She calls out in a language she doesn’t speak. The blue tips of her hair will glow in the darkness of her bedroom and the name on her lips won’t make sense.

     “Mako.”

     A hand runs down her back.

     “Mako, who’s Yance?”


End file.
